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Romeo y Julieta Vintage Maduro Corona

Romeo y Julieta is a many-headed beast, with at least seven different blends currently in distribution by Altadis USA. Lest you lay awake at night wondering how many extensions one brand name can possibly support, allow me to enumerate:

Romeo y Julieta 1875. The first Dominican made R y J, originally made by Matasa for Hollco-Rohr in the 1980s.

And then there are strange offspring like Cigar International’s Romeo y Julieta Viejo, as well as more legitimate but rarely seen Cabinet Editions, etc. The elasticity of the name is remarkable.

The Vintage Maduro blend I’m reviewing today is an interesting inversion of the Aniversario: the Ecuadorian Sumatra is used on the inside as a binder, and the broadleaf is the wrapper. Actually, it’s “blackened” broadleaf, whatever that means. The same term is used for the wrapper on the Reserve Maduro, but I’m not exactly sure what this “blackening” process is, or how it differs from the standard maduro process. (Presumably Sir Marksalot was not involved.)

Individual vitolas in the Vintage line are labeled I – VII, with the exception of the tubed cigars, the corona and the toro. The corona is a little bit fatter than normal — a 44 ring gauge rather than the standard 42, but otherwise a typical 5 1/2 inches in length.

The packaging is tasteful. Tubed cigars are always nice to give as gifts, particularly to dissolute friends as you pack them off after the holiday party. A tube will provide stability and a minimal level of defense against the shocks and blows of the journey home, but it won’t preserve the cigar indefinitely, so as your departing partygoers stagger off into the night remind them about proper humidification.

I approach this cigar with some hesitation. It’s been out for a while now but I’ve steered clear of it because it combines one of my favorite Altadis cigars — the RyJ Vintage — with a cigar I wouldn’t give my dog — the Reserve Maduro. I rarely rag on cigars here because it’s just not my style, but back in the early days of this blog I said the Reserve Maduro had an “excremental element.” That’s me being nice.

The wrapper is an oily and smooth dark maduro with some inconsistency in color. This is a good thing, since a perfectly uniform color often indicates artificial processing. The roll is firm but the draw is just right. It lights up easily and begins a slow smolder.

The Vintage Maduro is similar to the standard Vintage in body and style — mild and creamy smoke with a pronounced aroma and zero bite. In fact, for the first third there isn’t much taste on the palate at all — it’s all in the nose: sweet cedar and a touch of sugar. The burn is a little off kilter, but for a maduro it’s far above average.

The middle third offers up bittersweet chocolate and coffee flavors and the finish grows considerably. The aftertaste is still rather mild, but the flavors on the palate build as the body grows to a solid medium. The last section returns to the woody flavors with which it opened, but rather than fresh cedar it comes across as a sweet earthy char.

This little maduro turns out to be a fairly complex smoke that charts a course from sweet, mild and aromatic to a final destination of rich earth and charred wood. Ports of call include chocolate and coffee flavors, and the transition is aided by a slow and even burn. All told, this maduro version of the Vintage is worthy of the name, and definitely worth the retail price of 5 to 6 USD per stick. I’ll be on the lookout for more when I’m in the mood for a slow cruise across the dark sea of Maduro.

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8 thoughts on “Romeo y Julieta Vintage Maduro Corona”

Thanks so much for the review. I just stumbled on your blog about 2 months back and have enjoyed pouring over the reviews since. It’s opened up whole new avenues for cigars that I wouldn’t usually try (as well as relishing in the reviews of some that I already love). I’m a recovering Maduro junkie and this has been a huge help in widening and developing my previously scorched and blackened palate.

While I haven’t yet tried the Vintage Maduro, I do regularly enjoy several of the R y J offerings. My current favorite is the Habana Reserve. What a surprise that smoke turned out to be! Anyways, thanks! I look forward to checking out the Vintage Maduro.

I’m glad to hear our humble blog has been helpful! I’d hate to encourage that nasty maduro habit of yours, but have you tried Sabor Cubano? On second thought, I don’t want to be an enabler. Better leave those Sabors alone, bro. 🙂

I am a relative new comer to cigars having given up cigarettes, and am still in the discovery phase of what appeals to me, but my neighbor graciously invited me over to enjoy one of these last night and I must say it was about as perfect a cigar as I tried so far.

Your review is spot on. It has a nice range of complexities and your descritions through the entire burn could have been written by me.

I have been leaning towards the mild to medium bodied cigars and I tend to enjoy six inch varieties.

When my neighbor brought them out, and I saw that dark, oily wrapper, I immediately thought of a heavy, acrid smoke, so immagine my delight when my first pulls revealed very mild, almost silky smoke. As you mentioned, there are several flavor stops along the route, but I enjoyed it from that first pull, right on down to a small nub.

I have been making weekly pigrimages to the cigar shop to buy three or four new varieties to try. Art, the shop manager has already has a good bead on my tastes and has made several competent recommendations but has not led me to these yet. Thank God for good neighbors!!!

I haven’t tried the new CAO Gold Maduro, but the regular Gold is a nice mild smoke so the maduro is probably a good bet.

Lately I’ve been smoking Por Larranaga “Cuban Grade” maduros — they’re being closed out and are selling for around $2 a stick. Not as sweet or aromatic as the RyJ Vintage Maddie, but pretty decent for the price.